Our fabrics and yarns are sourced from the UK where possible. Our wool knitting yarn is UK grown and processed (some of the yarn is certified to organic standards, but not all as it depends on the type of yarn needed). The wool flannel fabric is woven at Melin Teifi in Carmarthenshire, from yarn spun in the UK from finer imported wool. Cotton and hemp is from Europe and India, produced in a fairly traded and sustainable way, certified organic wherever

possible.

We are also currently using wool herringbone fabric from a co- operative community in India; this is handspun from Tibetan wool, dyed with natural dyes and handwoven – with all the wonderful textures and little irregularities that make it so beautiful.

•For our own dyed yarns and fabrics, we use natural dye extracts, produced in France to Global Organic Textile Standards.

•We aim to use colour in a minimal way – researching dyeing processes some years ago was what first made us look into environmental and sustainability issues. Dyeing is one of the most harmful yet least necessary textile processes; we think it's time to treat colour as something really special!

•For screen printing, we use natural dyes and mordants and stencils – no other chemicals are employed for the process. This results in a unique individual print, but is time consuming and labour intensive.

•We use button fastenings on our garments, again sourcing buttons made from sustainable materials and produced in a fairly traded way.

•The only issue we currently have is getting organically grown sewing cotton – available but prohibitively expensive for our needs.

•Most of our garments are made in house, by ourselves. Where we use outworkers, they are paid a proper rate – we do not believe that knitting or stitching is simply something to do while watching telly – and this is reflected in our prices.

•We make items individually or in small batches to avoid wastage and left overs.

•We throw very little away! There is always someone who can make use of small scraps – we'd rather have them available for people to pick up than put them in the bin.